“Élégie”

September 28, 1945: Stockholm, Concert Hall

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Tor Mann

Bluebell ABCD 036

Massenet first forged this F minor melody when still a student at the Paris Conservatoire and only adapted it to Louis Gallet's poem some ten years later (in 1869). The melody itself speaks to us with such eloquent inflections that the nostalgic words of the abandoned lover can seem almost superfluous—although this is hardly the case when they are sung by Georges Thill, whose 1932 recording brings those words nobly alive within phrases of rare rhythmic freedom. Even more audacious in this respect is Feodor Chaliapin, whose Russian-language disc in D minor was made a year earlier. No other interpreter of this song translates the composer's indication in the opening measures (très expressif et avec accablement) so imaginatively into sound, or renders with such specificity of feeling the avec douleur marking in “Comme en mon cœur tout est somber et glacé.” Chaliapin's dynamic range is greater than any other on disc, and his phrasing surpasses that of the accompanying cello in its silky legato.

This song is a true test-piece and the finest recordings (at least by male voices) tend to be those by the greatest singers of any era. In the 1910s no one surpassed Enrico Caruso's version in French with Mischa Elman on the violin, and it was this disc that served as a model for Björling.